Passion by format

Rock singer Olga Arefieva quarreled with Our Radio. It went like this: Arefieva was invited to perform as a DJ in the program “Star Shift” (specially designed for musicians to comment on songs played on air); she, taking the idea to heart, offered her list of groups that she would like to enlighten listeners with - the Belarusians “Nagual” with their psychedelic folk, the Tuvans “Yat-Ha”, the Nordic reggae “Committee for the Protection of Heat” and other people who are not spoiled rotations. And she was refused: all these artists were not on the radio station’s playlist, so we had to choose from a fixed list - “Aquarium”, “Alice”, the group “Lube” and other familiar names. A little later it turned out that Arefieva and “Our Radio” misunderstood each other, that the “Star Shift” program did not at all imply complete DJ arbitrariness, but simply invited the musician to be the voice at the microphone, commenting on songs from the general roster of the radio station. But all this was no longer important: Arefieva wrote an angry rebuke to the format’s apologists on her blog - and away we go. The words “cardboard profanation” and “button eyes of the System” were heard. Arefieva's listeners warmly supported their idol, and the staff of Nashe Radio were loudly offended. There were both defenders of the format and especially zealous haters of it, who proposed adding, say, the group “Lisichkin Bread” to the notorious list. The discussion spread widely and soon reached the finally global questions: is there any normal music in Russia at all (they say that there is no), were there better times (they say that there were) and how can we overcome the “format” (only by tightly closing ranks and uniting in a single impulse of creative enthusiasm).

Almost the entire past week, musicians and journalists, publicists and poets, amateurs and professionals have been speculating about what happened; in the end it turned out briefly that everything was bad - but that’s how it should be in our sad times.

This situation is as typical (there have already been massive obscene curses against “NR” from numerous fans of the group “King and the Clown”, and essays with symptomatic titles like “Our Radio Sucks”), as it is, in essence, paradoxical - one can Can you imagine, say, a revolt among “Best FM” listeners or unrest among “Radio Chanson” fans over the exclusion of some Slava Medyanik from the playlist? In addition, with all the passion of those arguing and the harshness of the wording, one gets the feeling that a fierce discussion is unfolding as if by inertia, that those uttering angry rebuke really want to put into the radio station’s policy a certain value meaning that was once important to them, but has long since gone missing .

The creator of Our Radio, Mikhail Kozyrev, who has now changed his job, at one time managed to capture the moment when radio could still be more than radio, when it was able to lay claim to missionary and educational work. A fairly simple but terribly effective ideological trick - taking an influential musical mythology called “Russian rock”, positioning a specific FM frequency as its last stronghold and trying to saturate it with new meanings - worked one hundred percent; The adolescence and youth of an entire generation passed to the beats of “Our Radio”; a huge number of groups came out into the world on the hump of Russian rock. Both the canon and the pantheon were formed, and every new gesture (whether it was the introduction of Glucose into the rotation or Kozyrev’s demonstrative refusal of the songs of the Civil Defense group) caused serious unrest in the minds. In a certain sense, things are still there: about a month ago I had the opportunity to attend a festival of young rock bands from all over Russia selected through a competition, and so they all, with equal zeal, copy the techniques and habits of the artists published by NR.

Another question is that now the situation has clearly changed - and it is not the departure of Kozyrev, or even “rotten show business” that is to blame. It's just that a person trying to follow music through FM radio stations looks no less ridiculous than a person trying to get an idea of ​​modern cinema by watching TV. The radio has finally turned into noise, into the sounds that accompany trips in minibuses and running around in offices, into the background playing in barns, bars, taverns under all kinds of small zodiacs. It works for people who, in general, are not interested in music and do not intend to be aware of either American psych-folk or the forgotten relics of the Moscow underground, and it hardly makes sense to hate them or the program directors for this.

Hand on heart, who will benefit from the fact that either Arefyeva or the “Heat Protection Committee” will be constantly heard on the radio, even if we leave aside the question of the comparative value of these artists and the main characters of “Our Radio” (the answer to which is also completely not clear)? Will the Kovcheg group begin to fill stadiums after this? Will listeners who have realized the truth run to stores for a reissue of the “Teeth” album? All these speculations are somewhat reminiscent of the current slogans of ex-chess player Kasparov, such as “one week of normal debates on Channel One - and it will be a different country.” It won’t, no matter how much one would like it, and the feeling that Kasparov himself understands this perfectly well makes it even more unpleasant.

However, it is clear that Channel One and its ideological monopoly are a slightly different matter; dealing with the radio is much easier. A person who wants to hear different music just needs to turn on the computer, do a couple of simple manipulations - and get food for the ears for months to come, find at least the complete discography of the “Straw Raccoons”, at least rare tracks of the group “Gypsies and I from Ilyich”, at least archival tracks Bob Dylan. You can choose yourself, you can watch any clips, you can, in fact, listen to the radio - there is a service Lastfm.ru, which automatically generates playlists based on given listening preferences and recommends new groups, or “Special Radio” (specialradio.ru), which provides the opportunity choice from several dozen different radio stations, and these are only the most obvious options. Russian-language rock music in its present form has many problems, but, by God, they do not boil down to the insidiousness of the administration of Nashe Radio (even if their approach to selecting performers does sometimes cause noble indignation). And if a 15-year-old teenager is an inveterate fan of “Kukryniksy” or “Beasts” instead of going to concerts of the group “VaTaGa”, this is not at all because he has been fooled by the “format”. And most likely, because it really is more fun and pleasant for him.

Alexander GORBACHEV, "Afisha" magazine